When most business owners think about branding, they immediately think of large expenses. Most small businesses and start-ups often give up branding altogether because they find professional graphic design services at a price tag that exceeds their budget.
If you’re experiencing design envy because you can’t afford a designer or a brand consultant, we’ve got good news for you. You don’t have to hire a graphic designer to create a strong brand identity. Although doing this will greatly help your brand, there are many graphic design tools that you can use to design your brand on your own when you’re starting out.
In this guide, we’ll walk you through the 7 steps to create a killer brand without breaking the bank — even if you don’t have an eye for graphic design.
Define Your Brand Identity
Branding is not just about putting a logo on everything. As you start your business, it’s important to think about how you want to present yourself to customers.
The first step to creating your brand is to define your visual brand identity. Your brand identity is the face of your business, the voice it speaks with, and the way it makes people feel when they interact with it. This is the foundation you’ll build your entire brand upon.
To define your brand identity, write down everything that comes to mind when you think about your brand. These can be words or phrases that describe the values it stands for, the emotions it evokes, and the symbols that represent it. In addition, write down a few key adjectives that most accurately describe it.
Create a Moodboard
A moodboard is a collage of images that represents the look and feel of your brand. The point of a moodboard is to help you envision what you want your brand to look like and feel like in real life.
Here’s an easy and enjoyable way to design your moodboard, even if you don’t have an eye for design.
- Go to Desygner, find a moodboard template you like, and open it in the editor.
- Go to the image search and start typing the keywords you identified in Step 1. If you want your brand to be “elegant,” type that into the search bar and see what stock images pop up. Do this with every single keyword.
- Choose the images you resonate with the most and insert them into the template.
Choose Your Color Palette
Color is an incredibly powerful tool for creating a brand identity. It can be used to convey emotions, moods, and even specific messages. For example, red is often associated with excitement, while blue may make people feel calm or safe.
Before choosing colors for your brand, think about how you want people to feel about your business. Is it fun and friendly? Serious and professional? Choose colors that match that feeling so that every piece of marketing material helps reinforce it.
Here are a few useful tools you can use to choose the right colors for your brand:
- Coolors.co
- Paletton
- Adobe Color: Color Wheel
- ColorPickEyeDropper Chrome Extension
Pair Your Fonts
Fonts can make or break your design. They can make your designs look professional or amateurish. When choosing a font, think about the style and tone of your brand.
You can pair a couple of different fonts or one font in different styles. As a rule of thumb, go for no more than three fonts – one for the headlines, one for the body, and one accent font, which can be a bit more creative than the other two.
The key is to ensure that the fonts complement each other and don’t clash. In this guide from Desygner, you can find out what are the 10 best fonts for logos and branding design in 2022.
Choose Your Imagery
Imagery is one of the most important elements of your brand identity. Photos help define your brand’s visual style and communicate its personality. But here comes another problem that many small business owners face: no budget to hire a photographer. The solution? Stock photos.
The benefits of using stock photography for your business are amazing. Most of all, stock photos are a quick way to create consistency across your branding efforts without having to hire an in-house designer or photographer.
Here are a few tips to help you choose the right stock photos for your brand:
- Think about what you want people to feel when they see your image
- Consider how and where the image will be used
- Choose an image that reflects what you stand for
- Make sure it’s high quality and that you have the correct license for it
Design Your Logo
Your logo is usually one of the main elements that make people recognize your brand, so it’s important to get this right. A good logo should be simple enough to be easily recognizable but complex enough to convey the essence of your company.
DIYing your logo can seem overwhelming, but there are many tools you can use to design your logo without too much effort. For instance, you can use one of Desygner’s many logo templates and customize it to create a unique logo for your brand.
Keep Your Brand Assets in One Place
If you’re like most small businesses, you have a lot of different marketing materials. You might have a few versions of your logo, a couple of images to represent your brand on social media, business cards, brochures, and tons of other materials! It can be hard to keep track of everything, particularly when it comes to making sure that every single piece is consistent with the others.
Creating a brand library that includes every logo, color palette, and design element you use throughout your marketing efforts is an excellent way to avoid organization chaos and inconsistent branding. You can use a tool like Desygner’s brand library to help you keep all of your brand assets in one place.
Conclusion
No matter at what stage you are in the business world, branding is essential. From small startups to large companies, a strong and powerful brand around your product or service will set you apart from the crowd.
If you’re looking to DIY a brand that leaves an impression, Desygner is a fantastic solution. Desygner features customizable layouts, color palettes, fonts, and other elements that will help you build a beautiful brand identity. The platform is easy to use, the tools are intuitive, and the results are powerful.
